Optus improves Northern Territory mobile coverage via small cells

Optus has announced extending mobile coverage across 12 Northern Territory regions using small cells that leverage Optus' satellites rather than having to build out additional mobile towers in remote areas.

"This initiative is about delivering a choice in mobile services for workers and residents in and around these key locations, and enabling a 'check-in' capability for passing traffic such as travelling workers, truckies, and tourists," said Dennis Wong, acting managing director of Optus Networks.

Optus has been trialling its small cell technology, which provides mobile phone coverage to up to 3km surrounding the cell, in Oodnadatta, South Australia, calling the tests a "great success".

"As the only Australian telco to own and operate mobile, fixed, and satellite networks, this is a terrific initiative for Optus to leverage our expertise and introduce an innovative mobile and satellite technology solution to support our continued network expansion across Australia," Paul Sheridan, Optus Satellite VP, added.

"The use of small cells allow for the efficient provision of telecommunications services in difficult and often costly locations. While quite common in highly populous CBDs, we believe this is an excellent way to deploy this type of technology to deliver services to areas that are remote and geographically challenging."

Optus' satellite division owns the largest number of satellites covering Australia and New Zealand, with six satellites in orbit providing coverage to the region.

Optus Satellite last month also partnered with Ursys, allowing the latter access to its own satellite capacity along with that of its third-party satellite partners.

Ursys, which designs and provisions satellite-based voice and data communications including NT Connect for the Local Government Association of Northern Territory communities, will gain access to Optus' D2 satellite, alongside its teleport facilities in Belrose, Sydney, and wider infrastructure.

The small cell sites were funded by Telstra, and are being installed in addition to the 429 base stations built or upgraded by the telco under the AU$94.8 million in funding received from the government as part of round one of the mobile blackspot program.

While small cells -- which are miniature base stations -- only provide data services, Telstra said it is now working on rolling out voice over LTE (VoLTE) technology to enable voice calling.

Optus earlier this month reported a net profit of AU$173 million for the first quarter of the 2017 financial year on operating revenue of AU$2 billion and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) of AU$645 million.

Thank You

By registering you become a member of the CBS Interactive family of sites and you have read and agree to the Terms of Use, Privacy Policy and Video Services Policy. You agree to receive updates, alerts and promotions from CBS and that CBS may share information about you with our marketing partners so that they may contact you by email or otherwise about their products or services.
You will also receive a complimentary subscription to the ZDNet's Tech Update Today and ZDNet Announcement newsletters. You may unsubscribe from these newsletters at any time.